Back
in the day, when people wanted to assure others that they were
quoting from an expert, they would say the phrase, “According to
Hoyle...”
And
this phrase was used whether people were discussing a new law or art
history, the rules of a card game or mathematical theories.
Who
was this guy Hoyle? And how did he know so much about all sorts of
things?
Well,
Edmond Hoyle, who was born in the 1600s and died on this date in
1769, was probably not an expert in so many different things;
his name just became part of a phrase used to quote from experts of
any name.
But
he was a bit of an expert on the rules of card games. He was paid to
tutor members of high society on the game of whist, and he began to
publish his rule book for Whist. Eventually his publisher also
printed Hoyle's rule books for piquet, chess, quadrille, backgammon
and brag. At first each set of game rules was sold separately, in
thin phamphlet-like printings, eventually all the rules were combined
into one games rule book. Even today, many games rule books have
Hoyle's name on the cover (even though he did not write them).
Hoyle's
name was so linked to games, especially card games, that he became a
charter member of the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979—even though poker
hadn't yet been invented during his life!
Celebrate
Hoyle by playing card games!
Here
is a huge index of card games rule!
This resource for card games rules is much smaller, but the games have
been chosen as favorites with kids.
And
here is a free site where kids can play card games online.
Also
on this date:
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